On Wednesday 22nd October our class had an excursion to the Port Noarlunga Reef as part of our inquiry project on habitats.After getting kitted out with our life jackets we discovered limpets and mussels on the pylons under the jetty; we then explored the smaller reef closer to the shore; and had a ride in an IRB (Inflatable Rescue Boat) to the big reef. Though some children found the idea of going on the boat a bit scary, everyone enjoyed the boat ride immensely. While on the big reef we learnt about being safe and the need to never turn your back to the deeper ocean and how we could look after the eco-system of the reef. We saw and felt sea anemonies, sea stars, sponges, crabs, Dog Welks, limpets and thousands of mussels (which hurt your feet when you walked on them) plus many more sea creatures. It was a fun learning day!

Today we had fun discovering length through measuring.

We learnt the meanings of the words length, shorter, longer, same, width and height with a hands on activity. The children had to measure their boundary then draw a picture inside. Then using a 1m piece of string they had to measure parts of their drawing to discover which areas were longer, shorter or the same as the piece of string.

We began the week with news from the holidays. Many humorous and delightful recounts were told by the children for all to enjoy.

Our inquiry project this term is on habitats. We started our wonderings about the ocean and marine habitats, then deepened this by looking at the different classifications of habitats. We went on a bug hunt around our school with our buddies and compared habitats of creatures found in natural garden areas to habitats of creatures found in man-made structures. Using iPads the children photographed and created digital representations of what they had observed.

In maths we began to look at measuring length with formal and informal units, we made 3D shapes using nets and began to look at simple division applying our knowledge to sort out how many boats/trips we would need, to get all the children to the reef this Wednesday when we visit Port Noarlunga Reef.